Re: jay reatard

jay left us with brilliant pop song after brilliant pop song. he was a truly gifter songwriter. he made invigorating, vibrant, passionate pop music with starch. he made marvelous pop musici.

realize i'm late with acolytes but that doesen't diminish the fact that jimmy lindsay jr was an amazing and original talent.

True words.

I watched that documentary about him (can't remember if it's on Netflix, Hulu or Crackle - one of those streaming services that magically appeared on my bluray player) and it was so frustrating because the guy was obviously just getting started, and who knows where he would've ended up in the future? He was pretty obviously a pop genius whose head was full of as many melodies as Pete Shelley's or Bob Pollard's.

He was another one like Phillip Seymour Hoffman - had his drug issues but seemed to have pretty much cleaned up, then had a quick fall off the wagon and was dead before most people who knew him realized he'd relapsed.

A reunion with heroin after it's been kicked out of the house seems to be way more fatal than the initial romance.

But anyway, speaking of music documentaries on streaming services, if you have Netflix check out Teen-A-Gp-Go, about the Ft. Worth garage rock scene in the 60s. It's been a couple of months since I watched it, but I believe Ira is one of the talking heads on view, along with Lenny Kaye.

I'm assuming it's still up at Netflix, anyway. Stuff comes and goes from there so much it's hard to keep track. They also had the Creation Records documentary, too, which is worth checking out if it's still there.

I've always just rolled my eyes and dismissed this guy due to his stupid pseudonym, but now I'm thinking I should give him a shot. Watch Me Fall would be the one to start with, I presume?

Yeah, that's probably the best place.

And I agree - his choice of stage name was incredibly stupid and juvenile and I wish he'd picked a different one.

This would probably be a decent song to dip a toe with:

[youtu.be]

But I was always more of an unwilling participant than a fan...

Well, he did used to be in a band called the Reatards, so that's probably where he picked up the "Jay Reatard" handle (a la Joey Ramone, et al), though he ended up being better known as a solo artist than as an ex-Reatard.

Worth noting that my first date with my gf was at JR's free Amoeba SF show almost five years ago, so we use that date as our anniversary (considering the man's, um, personal habits, it may-or-may-not mean something that our relationship has managed to outlive the man himself).

so beautiful, deejay45 holding one of jay's hand and satch holding his other...

free passes to heaven for everyone.